The Human Spirit: Funny on the way to the forum

I decide against trying to convince the astute agent that I have been mistaken for a Swede.

LARGO DEL TORRE 370.
(photo credit:Wikimedia Commons)

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum.

On a Friday morning in
late August, my husband and I are walking towards Largo del Torre Argentina, the
substitute forum used in 44 BCE by the Roman Senate while their usual meeting
place was being rebuilt. That’s where Julius Caesar used to speak, and that’s
where, on an infamous March 15, Caesar met his death at the hands of
conspirators. Cassius, and Brutus, too.

A man comes up behind us and
begins speaking softly in Italian-accented, fluent Hebrew.

“The hat,” he
says. “When you leave the ghetto, you take off the kippa.”

Before we have
a chance to find out who our adviser is, and what danger might await us, he’s
gone.

“When you leave the ghetto...” We are, indeed, a reasonable walk
from the Ghetto di Roma, so it’s a fair assumption that the stranger’s warning
referred to the literal Ghetto and not a metaphorical one. He thought we’d just
come from there. Where else do observant Jews head for as soon as they touch
ground in Rome? The Rome Ghetto provides a lachrymose lesson in Jewish history.
Jews were forced behind ghetto walls in the 16th century, limited in what
professions they could engage: rag merchant, fishmonger and pawnbroker were
among the non-skilled trades that were allowed. Renowned Jewish physicians were
prohibited from treating non-Jews.

Leaving the ghetto required not a hat
but the ignominious yellow symbol: a cloth for men, a veil for women. Jews
needed to swear yearly loyalty to the pope at the Arch of Titus, with its
depiction of the sacking of Jerusalem. The insistence that Jews live in the
Ghetto di Roma was set aside for a year when the Republic was established in
1798, and again for a few years in 1848, but was soon reestablished.

The
walls were finally torn down in 1888, making Rome’s squalid Jewish section the
last standing ghetto until the Nazis re-invented them. This was the fate of the
Jewish community that predated Christianity in the Italian capital.

But
today, the ghetto is a cheerful place: the source of synagogue services, Jewish
city tours and kosher food. Carciofi alla Giudia, the famous cooked artichoke
dish some claim goes back thousands of years, and fiori di zucca, stuffed
zucchini flowers instead of cabbage or grape leaves. Kosher pizza. On one hand,
we welcome being spotted as Jews. Even our mysterious interlocutor in the street
was drawn to us by noticing my husband’s kippa.

On the other hand, we
might be naïve. The worm of doubt creeps in. This is Europe, not
America.

In the last week one rabbi walking with his six-year-old
daughter was attacked in Berlin, while another was assaulted in Vienna. Then
Italian journalist Giulio Meotti, a non-Jew known for his vociferous admiration
of Israel, reported that the stairs to his office were vandalized with red paint
and the words “Free Palestine.” In Rome.

What do we know, used to life in
Jerusalem, where religious symbols and garb are ubiquitous? Muslim women, Jewish
women and nuns dress in similar garb these days. Male identity is fixed by the
nuances of devotional skullcaps. So many people cover their heads that you don’t
even notice, unless, say, you are spending a morning with a European
photographer fascinated by so much exotic dress.

I remind myself that one
of my pre-Rosh Hashana resolutions is to try to understand what people are
really trying to say when they offer me unsolicited, often annoying,
advice.

In the end, we remember that this is the city where one is
advised “when in Rome do as the Romans do.” (The expression, by the way, goes
back to the fourth century and has to do with observing local tradition about
fast days, not la dolce vita.) So, my husband reluctantly covers his kippa with
a visored sun hat.

And that’s how we travel to the quaint Italian coastal
town where most of our short summer’s- end vacation takes place. Hardly anyone
speaks a sentence of English, so there’s no opportunity for dialogue on theology
or the Middle East.

At the supermarket – where the origin of all produce
is scribbled on tiny chalk boards – near the Ecuadorian papaya and Peruvian
avocadoes, stands a bin of mangoes “from Israel.”

Closer inspection shows
that the mangoes are actually from Brazil, but no one has bothered to change the
sign. That’s about as political as it gets in this town.

Still, the
whispered Roman warning has had its impact. We’re not going to hide our
identities, but we’re not going to flaunt them, either.

We carry our
Israeli snacks, not in Ben-Gurion Airport duty-free bags, but in a sack from the
local supermarket. When the itinerant Senegalese peddlers hawking leather
purses, sunglasses and sweaters ask where we’re from after the haggling is over
and we settle on a price, I don’t answer. After all, 94 percent of Senegalese
are Muslim. They speculate aloud: England, Germany, Sweden? I smile. This is a
first for me; I’ve never before been mistaken for a Scandinavian.

I
convince myself that I have displayed what the Swedes call lagom, moderation, in
my bargaining style. The vacation must be working. I think of a Swedish friend
who spent years converting to Judaism, and how he gave up this neutral identity
to become a Jerusalem Jew.

I leave the question of my origins in the
air.

An Italian woman who has been listening to the transaction wants to
get in on the deal and buy a pullover, too. I realize I’d rather not have her
think that the woman who got the price down is Swedish. Too many
stereotypes.

The interlude is over quickly. The night before we leave, I
have an anxiety dream in which I nearly miss the plane and try to convince the
airport officials that I must get back home for Rosh Hashana.

In reality,
we are in the line to Israel in plenty of time. The line to Israel is easy to
spot: kippot, keffiyas and nuns’ veils. When asked by security if anyone who
sold me anything knew I was flying back to Israel, I assure him that no one has.
But I decide against trying to convince the astute agent that I have been
mistaken for a Swede.The author is a Jerusalem writer who focuses on the
wondrous stories of modern Israel. She serves as the Israel director of public
relations for Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. The views
in her columns are her own.

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